Blogs

Lorraine Fernandes is an international thought leader, accomplished author and respected public speaker on topics related to health information technology. She has published numerous articles on the impact of using information technology for the improvement of individual and population health. She has in depth knowledge about data exchange and data quality. Additionally, she has expertise in patient, provider and citizen identification related to patient safety, electronic health records and customer satisfaction. Lorraine is a principal liaison with international and US professional and industry agencies and IBM clients.

Provider data can be hard to pin down amid the winds of change that lash the healthcare environment from all directions. Rather than stumbling blind through a blizzard of competing demands, turn to IBM Master Data Management solutions to help you stay on top of your provider data.

With the proliferation of digital data, how can healthcare providers manage all this information while complying with mandated requirements? Cognitive computing can help providers understand the importance of this data and leverage it to become a key asset.

Every day hundreds of articles and blogs are written about the theoretical value of big data, but many don’t offer actionable specifics. At IBM Insight on October 28, we are correcting this historical shortcoming and showcasing how big data (specifically Big Match) is enabling a single view of a...

Building confidence in the big data and analytic initiatives requires good governance. Data from a variety of sources, and in different formats, heightens the need for strong, proactive governance. Health information management professions area ideal candidates for this critical need.

Patient identification and patient matching have been a decades-long challenge for the healthcare industry. Hear some of the recent industry activities addressing these challenges, as well as the UPMC case study.

There are many paths to actively engaging consumers in their health and wellness, and the ONC Patient Matching Final report provided yet another avenue. In my blog I mentioned consumer engagement as a path to better data quality, but the value is really very broad. Therefore, it is important that...

Patient matching requires a solution that includes people, process and technology. There is no silver bullet such as a national patient identifier. The ONC Patient Identification and Matching Final Report reflected this long-held belief. Enjoy some highlights from this report below:
Standardize...

HIMSS14 attendees are in for a treat this year; in addition to the amazing educational sessions and exhibits, visitors will have the opportunity to an exciting story about real-time analytics for research and data quality. Dr Ray Duncan, CTO for Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, and Dr...

In my last blog post I shared some of the background on the December ONC Patient Identification and Matching Stakeholder meeting, as well as barriers explored during the meeting. Lively debate erupted around some findings, with a few participants feeling that the whole discussion was going down the...

The December 16, 2013 ONC Stakeholder meeting addressing patient identification and matching could best be summed up by a statement made early in the day’s discussions by Dr Scott Schumacher, chief scientist for MDM at IBM: “We don’t have an algorithm issue, we have a data quality issue.” As the...